This Kickstarter is attempting to raise $40,000 for At the Gates, a turn-based strategy game set during the decline of the Roman Empire. This will be developed by Conifer Games, a new studio formed by Jon Shafer, most recently of Stardock and lead designer on Sid Meier's Civilization V when he was at Firaxis.. Shortly after it was announced that Shafer was joining Stardock it was said that he would "bring additional modding expertise to the recently launched Elemental: War of Magic and will take the lead in designing the next as-of-yet unannounced Stardock title." Jon's LinkedIn profile indicates he left Stardock in September 2012 after serving as "project lead for an unannounced title." Back to At the Gates, they offer a trailer with almost 15 minutes of gameplay, and do a much better job than many Kickstarters of summarizing what to expect:

At the Gates is an empire builder similar to Sid Meier's Civilization. Starting with a small tribe, you must explore the world, exploit its scarce resources, and eliminate or outsmart potential enemies. The game starts simple but grows in complexity until you command a mighty economic and military powerhouse.

Over the course of a single game your tribe will migrate to more lush and bountiful lands, conquer and barter with other clans, work alongside the Romans, learn from them, and finally destroy them. Along the way, you'll need to master the art of war and craft cunning plans to strengthen your kingdom - all while enduring the worst mother nature can throw at you!

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nin wrote on Feb 6, 2013, 14:24:edit: Did I mention Wildman isn't going to make it?

The whole Wildman saga baffles me. Chris Taylor is a smart guy, and yet he doesn't seem to understand why his Kickstarter is failing. He keeps saying in interviews that the numbers for his Kickstarter are off by a magnitude, when he compares it to other KS. (and even that is odd, because he keeps mentioning Molyneux, and his numbers are about the same as Molyneux's were.)

Every KS he's talking about is a KS for bringing life back to an old, beloved franchise. Wasteland, Shadowrun, Baldur's Gate-style RPG, Populous.

And he comes up with some weird hybridization of DOTA/RTS/Diablo, fires his entire studio, makes it clear that the money is needed just to keep his studio alive, has repeatedly said that even if they get the 1.1 million, he doesn't really know if they will be able to finish the game with it, and somehow he is surprised that his KS isn't catching on fire.